Railway-grade-crossing protective device.



APPLICATION FILED SEPT. 15. H3.

Patented Jan. 23, 1917.

Fig.2.

INVENTORJ 16M. Ste L1 WITNESSES.

Gqorg V1 cYo-r SEQ/0.111

ATTORNEY GEORGE M. STOLL AND VICTOR S. BEAM,

0F MAPLEWOOD, NEW JERSEY.

RAILWAY-GBADE-CROSSING PROTECTIVE DEVICE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 23, 1917.

Application filed September 15, 1913. Serial N 0. 789,807.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, Gnonea M. SToLL and VIOroR S. EAM, citizens of'the United States, residing at Maplewood, in the county of Essex and State of New Jersey, have invented a new and useful Railway-Grade- Crossing Protective Device, of which the following is a specification.

Our invention relates to improvements in means for preventing accidents and loss of life at places where a public highway crosses a railway at grade and has for its object the providing of an arrangement of gate or gates and warning and signaling devices whereby upon the approach of a train, warning of said approach and against crossing the railway is given, an attempt is made by closing a gate or gates to physically force pedestrians, vehicles or any other obstruction off the crossing area or to prevent entrance upon it, and failing in this or upon failure of the gate or gates to close for that or other reasons the approaching train is held up by signal until the obstruction has been removed and the gates closed.

\Ve attain these objects by the mechanism and arrangement illustrated in the accom panying drawing in which- Figure 1 is a general or diagrammatic plan of the arrangement of gate mechanism,

warning and signal system as applied to a double track railway and Fig. 2, a side view of the gates and their operating mechanism.

Similar numerals refer to similar parts in the two figures.

The railway tracks are represented by A and B with rails 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively and the highway by 5, 6 and 7 are gates arranged to swing horizontally across the railway tracks and over highway. crossing area. The normal position of the gates being the open one across the railway tracks as shown in full lines in Fig. 1. The dotted out-line of these gates in this figure indicates their closed position across the highway when they have been operated by the approach of a train. Each gate consists of a horizontal portion or framework 8 mounted upon a vertical shaft 9 which is rotatably supported within a casing 10. Anelectric motor 11 provides the power for closing the gates, which are operatively connected together and to the motor by means of beveled gears 12 and 13, the shaft 14 and beveled gears 15, 16 and 17. A spring 18 for reopening the by means of a latch 19 forced into en relay lever 26 gates is interposed between each gate and its casing 10 so that it will be wound up when the motor rotates the gates to close them. The ate 7 and indirectly gate 6 may be held in 516 position across the highway agement with the-hook 20 attached to the gate 7 by means of a spring 21. This latch may, however, be tripped and the gate be released by the influence of the magnet 22.

23 and 24 are electric supply wires which mav run parallel to the railway. tracks along the right of way and which may be the ordinary lightin circuits or may be especially arrange for supplying current to the gate operating and signal devices at the crossing shown or any number of like crossmgs.

25 and 26 are duplicate relays for connecting supply wires 23 to the wire 27 connected to one terminal of the bell 28 and to one terminal 11 of the motor 11 through coil 29 of the relay 30. Relay 25 is operated by a coil 31 connected across rails 3 and 4, track B, in block 32, defined by insulating joints 33 and 34 and fed by Relay 26 is operated by a coil 36 connected to rails 1 and 2, track A, in block 37, defined by insulatingjoints 38 and 39 and supplied with current from battery 40. The contact lever 41 of relay 25 is extended beyond the pivot 42 so as to connect contacts 43 and 44 and is extended beyond the pivot 46 to connect contacts 47 and 48 together. Contact 43 is lead by wire 49 to one terminal of magnet 22 whose other terminal is connected to supply wire 24 by wire 50. Contact 44 is connected to contact 48 and contact 47 is connected to supply wire 23.

The other terminal 11 of the motor 11 is connected tothe contact 51- of cut-out 52 operated by stub 53 on gate 6. The other contact 54 of cut-out 52 is connected to supply wire 24 and to the remaining terminal of the bell 28. Contacts 55 and 56 of relay 30 may be bridged by piece 57 and thus' join supply wire 24 to the lights and operating mechanism of ordinary semaphores 58 and 59 which are placed along the railway tracks nearer to the crossing than the beginning of the blocks in which they are situated.

60 is an electric lamp carried by each gate which at night will serve to outline the gate for persons traveling the highway and may battery 35.

similarly contact lever 45 of serve as an additional signal to the engineer of the approaching train in case the movement of the gate, for any reason, has been obstructed. This lamp can. be supplied with current from the supply wires 23 and 2t through the medium of slip-rings (not shown) on the gate or by flexible cables (not shown).

Having described the apparatus and arrangement we will now describe the operation of our proposed protective device: When the railway tracks are clear, the gates are open as indicated in the full line positions of Fig. 1 and the highway is unobstructed. The relays 25 and 26 have their levers 4:1 and out of contact with wire 27, their coils being energized by currents from batteries 35 and i0 respectively. The motor is therefore not operating. Upon the approach of a train upon track A, for instance, and its entrance into block 37, the rails 1 and 2 are short circuited by the axles and wheels of the train and lever 45 of relay 26 is dropped, closing the circuit to motor ll'and electric bell 28. This immediately starts the bell to ring and the motor to revolve but as the gates will move slowly a short interval of warning will be given before the gates interfere with passage on the highway. The closing of the motor circuit causes the relay 30 to be drawn upward, thereby bridging contacts 55 and 56 and closing the circuits to semaphores 58 and 59. This will cause them to be set for danger and they will continue in this position as long as the motor is operating. The gates swing from the open position across the railway tracks toward the closed position across the highway, together sweeping over practically all the area common to the a highway and the railway tracks at a height which is best suited forstriking a pedestrian, horse, or vehicle, and if no obstruc-' tionis met with they continue until they are substantially at right angles to the highway reaching their position a considerable time before the train reaches the crossing. In this position the gates are locked by the action of the latch 19 and the motor is stopped by having its circuit opened by switch-5'2 operated by the stud 53 on gate 6. This will allow relay 30 to interrupt the signaling circuit at 55 and 56, thereby allowing the semaphores to indicate a clear track, it being understood that the block is to be long so that there can be a considerable distance between the beginning of the block and the semaphore and between the semaphore and the crossing so that the engineer need only stop his train when the danger signal is long continued. The parts remain in this position until the train has passed out of block 37 when leverl5 of relay 26 is lifted bridging contacts 47 and i8, thereby closing circuit of magnet 22 (contacts l3 and 4t having remained normally bridged), tripping latch 19 and releasing the gates which now swing back across the railway tracks under force of the springs 18. This action of gate 6 allows switch 52 to close so that the motor 7 circuit may be completed again at either relay 25 or 26. A train approaching on rails 1 and 2 of track A from the other direction would cause the gates to act in a similar manner except that in this case the clos- .5 ing action would be through the medium of relay 25 instead of relay 26. If, however, an obstacle such as an overzealous pedestrian, automobile or other vehicle whose driver had disregarded the warning and so had taken a chance'and lost, or a stalled vehicle, is met with in the swing of the gates, an efiort will be made by said gates to brush said obstacle off the crossing area and if they succeed the swing of the g5 gates will continue as before and the operation of parts for approach of trains in either direction will be the same as set forth above when no obstacle was contemplated. The force exerted against the obstacle by so the gates will depend upon the power of the motor and if its limit is exceeded the gates will be impeded or totally stalled and the circuit leading to the semaphores 58 and 59 will remain completed and the signal against the approach of a train oneither track will remain set until the obstruction has been removed and the gates have reached the full closed position. After the engineer has received the signal given by the operation of the semaphores and the train has gone beyond the crossing and passed out of the block the gates, will be unlatched and swung across the railway tracks under the influence of the springs 18 as before. The 1 above described action of the gates when meeting with an obstacle in their swing will be true whether the train is approaching from the right on track A or from the left on track B of Fig. 1, and whether it is gate 6 or gate 7 or both of them that meets with the obstacle.

The above described arrangement of swinging gates and signaling devices while not limited to such uses is particularly ap- 1 plicable to railway crossings in isolated districts where the cost of employing flagmen or gate-keepers is regarded as prohibitive. The above described arrangement combines the positiveness of a crossing gate with the warning, persuasiveness and train signaling capacity of a. fiagman. This arrangement, upon the approach of a train, gives a warning and exerts physical force to clear the tracks and if it fails in this latter opera- 12 tion. signals the on-coming train to stop.

lVhile we have described our improvement in connection with a double-track railroad, we do not wish to be understood as limiting our invention to such an arrange- 1,21s,ao2 v ,1 3

meat for it can readily be applied to a single track railroad in which trains approach the crossing in both directions, by the use of a single interlocking relay in place of the two relays 25 and 26 described above.

ikewise we do not wish to be understood as limiting the invention to a steam road for it may be applied to an electrically-operated railway and it is not our desire to limit the invention to a particular form of horizontal gate shown in the drawing nor to the particular position or direction of horizontal swing there shown for it may be desirable in some cases to have the gate or gates swing in the direction with that of the approaching train and it is also within our invention to operate protecting devices at more than one crossing through the medium of a single block or pair of blocks on the railway. Nor do we wish to limit the invention to an arrangement in which a spring is interposed between the motor and the gate for instead of utilizing the spring for returning each gate to its position across the railway tracks it is within our invention to have the gates returned to this position by reversing the direction of .rotation of the motor. a

What we claim is:

1. A protective device for railway crossings, comprising a horizontally-movable gate normally positioned across the track, a train-controlled motor adapted to slowly move the gate to a position parallel with the track, train releasable means for holding the gate in the latter position and means for restoring said gate to its normal position.

2. A protective device for railway crossmgs, comprising a pairof horizontally-move able gates normally positioned across the track. a train-controlled motor adapted to slowly move the gates to 'a position parallel with the track, train releasable means for holding the gates in the latter position, and

means for restoring said gates to their normal position.

3. A protective device for railway crossings, comprising a horizontally-movable gate normally positioned across the track, train controlled meansadapted to slowly move the gate to-a position parallel with the track, means for holding the gate in the latter position and means for restoringsaid gate to its normal position.

t. A protective device for railway crossings, comprising a horizontally-movable gate normally positioned across the track atrain-controlled motor adapted to slowly move the gate to a position parallel with the track, a latch for said gate, a relay for releasing said latch, and means for restoring said gate to its normal position.

5. A horizontally-movable railway crossing gate, a train-controlled motor adapted to slowly swing the gate from a position across the track to a position parallel with the track, train releasable means for holding the gate in the latter position and means for restoring said gate to its normal .position.

6. A horizontally-movable railway crossing gate, a train-controlled motor adapted to slowly swing the gate from a position across the track to a position parallel with the track and train-controlled means for holding the gate in the latter position and for swinging said gate to a position across the track.

G. M. STOLL. VICTOR S. BEAM. Witnesses:

JAMES M. SToLL, Ronrnr D. Browns. 

